Don’t Delay Treating a Chipped Tooth

Posted March 15, 2018.

Chewing on pens and pencils or using your teeth to open packaging can place an excessive amount of force on your tooth enamel. A similar threat is also posed by grinding your teeth while sleeping. In time the unnatural force applied to your teeth could chip or fracture a tooth.

Without professional diagnosis and treatment from a dentist like Dr. Imeni the compromised tooth enamel could come to foster a severe cavity. After examining the tooth to determine the severity of the damage he will present you with a treatment plan.

A minor chip that only affects a single surface of the tooth enamel might be treated by installing a dental filling. However, a more significant dental fracture might not leave enough healthy tooth enamel behind to anchor a dental filling.

A patient with a tooth in this condition will likely need a dental crown restoration to fully replace the tooth’s enamel layer.

Going forward you might want to address the initial cause of the dental fracture, which could including editing a bad oral habit or sleeping with a simple dental guard in your mouth.

If you live in the Durham, North Carolina, area and you have recently chipped or fractured a tooth, you should call 919-220-5505 to have it examined and treated at Smile Design - Family & Cosmetic Dentistry.